Millennium was founded in 1993 with a vision that still drives us today. We believe that by applying the methods of leading science to the art of drug discovery, we will develop breakthrough products that will fundamentally change the practice of medicine.
In its early years, Millennium focused on building top-notch science and business teams to help achieve this vision. Attracted by our scientific leadership, entrepreneurial spirit, and aggressive but judicious growth, Millennium quickly began to earn the attention and respect of many of the best scientists and business people from around the world.
Beginning in 1994, Millennium created more than 20 strategic alliances with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. These alliances provided Millennium with close to $2 billion of committed funding that we used to develop and enhance our pipeline. With an innovative, integrated science and technology platform, expertise in drug-target discovery, and industry-leading partnerships, the company was geared to prime the product pipeline.
But Millennium leadership also recognized that discovering new drug targets was only one step in the pathway toward the ultimate goal of providing breakthrough therapeutic products that would help patients. Through transformational mergers and acquisitions, Millennium continued to advance toward the goal of building a leading biopharmaceutical company. A merger with Leukosite in 1999 brought the company its first drug close to market, Campath® (alemtuzumab) Injection, and additional investigational drugs in clinical trials. In 2000, a merger with Cambridge Discovery Chemistry gave Millennium a strong presence in the United Kingdom and added to the organization more than 100 scientists with expertise in chemistry. In a strategic business decision, Campath was later sold to Genzyme.
In February 2002, a merger with COR Therapeutics — among the largest such mergers in the history of the biotech industry — helped to further solidify our standing as a leading biopharmaceutical company. In addition to creating a strong pipeline of novel therapeutics, the merger added cardiovascular research and drug development to the Company's other key therapeutic areas: oncology and inflammation. The merger also brought INTEGRILIN® (eptifibatide) Injection, a market-leading intravenous anti-platelet drug for patients with severe cardiovascular diseases, into the Millennium fold. Later in 2005, the Company sold the rights to Schering-Plough.
As Millennium celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2003, the Company reached new heights. VELCADE® (bortezomib) for Injection was launched in May for the treatment of relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. VELCADE is now approved in the U.S. for treatment of multiple myeloma patients after only one prior therapy. VELCADE — the first FDA approved proteasome inhibitor reached the market in record time and represents the first treatment in more than a decade to be approved for patients with multiple myeloma — a cancer of the blood.
VELCADE® is currently approved in more than 75 countries worldwide, including the U.S., European Union and a number of countries within Latin America and Southeast Asia. VELCADE is being co-developed by Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Johnson & Johnson Research and Development L.L.C. Millennium is responsible for commercialization of VELCADE in the U.S. Ortho Biotech Products L.P. and the Janssen-Cilag group of companies are responsible for commercialization in the EU and the rest of the world. Janssen Pharmaceutical K.K. is responsible for Japan.
Today, Millennium has a leading oncology product, proven commercial capabilities, and many product candidates in varying stages of development. We are continually evolving to ensure that our research and development efforts stay current with the demand for new therapeutic products that will make a genuine difference in patient's lives.
